Protest, Pressure, and the Risk of Misreading Iran  

Reza Pahlavi, the crown prince of Iran, released a video in Farsi last week calling on Iranians to go outside on Thursday and Friday evenings at 8pm. He urged them to chant from wherever they were, be it streets, rooftops, windows, inside homes, as a collective act of protest against the Islamic Republic’s leadership. Was this part of a plan?

For what it was worth, I had already begun thinking about Iran a few days into the new year, as my time in the English countryside was coming to an end. Bizarrely enough, I heard what I took to be the washing machine. A steady, menacing hum. Then I realised it was coming from outside, then from the sky, and was likely connected to the nearby military airbase shared with the Americans. I realised I now knew that sound from elsewhere—from Bagram, Kandahar, Camp Bastion, Lashkar Gah—not the sound of fury exactly, but of military activity stepping up.

I scanned the press that day. Reports indeed suggested the United States was building up its military presence in the UK following its unilateral mission to capture Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and his wife. According to several accounts in the press, both local and national, at least ten C-17 Globemasters and a pair of heavily armed AC-130Js had already landed at two bases, including the one nearby. The Ministry of Defence declined to comment, but the rural Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard noted a US spy plane among the movements, probably a Lockheed U-2 Dragon Lady.

Understandably, these developments would be linked to Greenland as well as the seizure of a sanctioned oil tanker, later three, though another two were to slip through the Channel unchallenged. My instinct at the time was to wonder whether any of this was not also connected to Iran, where demonstrations were still under-reported. Nor was the Iranian situation entirely disconnected from Venezuela. It was well understood how the operation there undermined Iran’s strategic energy partnership with Caracas, cutting off another source of oil exports and leverage against US sanctions.

The protests in Iran had begun over the collapsing economy and the plunge of the rial, spreading through Tehran’s Grand Bazaar and into other cities. This was despite heavy security, including the familiar, malevolent swarms of state motorbikes. Officials quickly blamed “foreign enemies,” notably the US and Israel.

By the second week, protests had hardened into broader anti-government dissent. At least 36 people had been killed and more than 2,000 arrested. Iran’s chief judiciary promised “no leniency.” In Kurdish regions, security forces reportedly used teargas, pellet guns, and live ammunition. Footage posted via Starlink showed shopkeepers, students, and opposition figures calling for sustained protest.

That week back in London I happened to meet two seasoned ex-diplomats. The first said a great deal in the Middle East—and beyond—now hinged on Iran, which was acutely sensitive to any international take on things after the US raids in Venezuela, with fears something similar might be about to be attempted in Tehran. “Geopolitical spillover” was the phrase. The collapse of the rial, combined with inflation and sanctions, was fuelling unrest but now human-rights groups were reporting children killed and dozens of minors detained.

Some demonstrators had begun renaming streets, including one in Tehran after Trump. Opposition figures in exile spoke of a historic opportunity, though they had all been down this road before. Iran’s army chief warned of pre-emptive military action in response to the hostile rhetoric coming out of Washington. Trump, meanwhile, issued fresh threats. “Death to the dictator” became a common chant in the streets of Iran.

After meeting the second ex-diplomat, I wondered why this country gripped me so. Was it because I’d seen what regime collapse had looked like elsewhere? Was it because I distrusted Western interventionist optimism? Or was it because Iran sat at the crossroads of so many mistakes many have watched unfold in the past?

Press coverage turned to the details of possible Western military intervention. This was expected to mean precision air strikes to degrade Iran’s capacity to suppress the protests. There was even talk of a no-fly zone to “protect” civilians. While Trump’s statements amounted more to threat than plan, not perhaps for the first time, US officials insisted strike options remained “on the table.” The relevance now of UK airbases seemed indirect, meaning Cyprus rather than Gloucestershire.

If Iran responded by targeting US or allied bases, it was expected Washington might authorise retaliatory strikes on missile or drone sites. As these possibilities were weighed, I thought back to a traditional Iranian family feast in Italy in my late teens, celebrating Nowruz. I remembered sprouts, apples, garlic, baklava, poetry. Two of the Iranians were gifted painters. This was shortly before the Revolution. I believed, in my innocence, that Iran was, above all else, a culture of warrior-poets and beautiful people. I wondered now whether that memory complicated, or sharpened, my response to today’s calls for regime change.

Meanwhile, protests demanding an end to clerical rule continued to escalate. Security forces responded with live ammunition, internet blackouts, and mass arrests. Rights groups reported dozens more killed and thousands detained. Famously harassed staff at BBC Persian reported at least 70 bodies in one hospital one night. While the ageing Iranian leader tried to explain the world to a young population, the Norwegian human-rights group Hengaw reported that some security personnel had been arrested for refusing orders to fire.

However, and this may be crucial to know, many Iranian protesters remain wary of the West even as they oppose their government. There seems little enthusiasm for foreign intervention. Especially with reports of UK diplomats believing Trump may be motivated in part by distracting US voters from the economy in the run-up to the mid-terms. On the subject of Iran at the weekend, former UK Iranian ambassador Sir Richard Dalton also said, “I don’t trust the Americans.” He cited previous records with regime change. Surveys suggested a significant minority in Iran preferred Western powers not intervene at all, seeing the movement as an internal struggle. Some also noted the irony of American authorities shooting their own citizens while condemning Iran for doing likewise.

What worries some now is not indifference, but misalignment, between Western signalling and the harsh realities faced by protesters. Many do seem to favour Western diplomatic pressure, which is something very different. Polls during earlier protest waves showed strong support for defending protesters’ rights, even as direct military involvement remained unwelcome.

This is why Trump’s public warnings risk being counter-productive. Strong US rhetoric allows Tehran to portray the movement as Western-backed, justifying even worse crackdowns and reawakening nationalist sentiment. Threatening military action, even rhetorically, raises the stakes, emboldens hardliners, and makes protests more dangerous. The effect is often the opposite of what is claimed. In other words, not protection, but exposure.

We keep hearing that it may be preferable, then, that the protesters hear it from a crown prince. Pahlavi is the eldest son of the late Shah, himself reinstalled by the US, but he has no governing experience, which is why some regard him as a pawn. Unlike Western leaders, however, he occupies a space outside the regime that is nonetheless still within Iran’s historical imagination. His association with the Shah is said to have softened among younger protesters. In Iran today, though, or so it appears, credibility is earned not through exile or inheritance, but through risk-sharing, which is something no one outside the country like Pahlavi can fully do.

We are also told the Supreme Leader is preparing to leave. He had not left at the time of writing. Maybe he has since. What is certain is that others are positioning themselves abroad and at home. The danger, as ever, is that those with the least to lose will shout loudest, while those with the most to lose will be left to absorb the consequences.

Protests have continued amid intensified repression, with no rupture inside the regime and no external intervention beyond talk and sanctions, though Trump has just taken a more direct stance again in the past day by urging Iranians “keep protesting,” saying that “help is on its way,” cancelling talks with Tehran and intensifying pressure with more tariff talk and the warning that military options remain open. Recent reports suggest that overall fatalities have climbed into the low thousands—with one Iranian official acknowledging about 2,000 deaths—making the past week one of the deadliest of unrest. However, the central problem remains unchanged. Pressure from below persists, but the danger of outsiders misreading, and thereby worsening, the moment has only grown.

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